A Christian publisher has pulled influential evangelical David Barton's bestseller – which aims to debunk "myths" about Thomas Jefferson's theological leanings – after receiving complaints of about inaccuracies.

The conservative leader was called one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals by Time Magazine and counts Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee among his supporters. In The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, he argues that the third US president was a more fervent Christian than commonly believed.

Publisher Thomas Nelson received complaints about the book even before its release and withdrew it after an internal review found many of Barton's claims did not have sufficient support. Initially, Barton's supporters said the criticism was ideologically based, but significant criticism from within the evangelical community has emerged.

Evangelical critics include professor Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College, who with fellow professor Michael Coulter authored In Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, which assessed twenty key claims from Barton's book. The professors found that Barton's book omits key historical facts and presents a misleading picture of Jefferson's theological leanings.

Barton, who is founder of WallBuilders, an organization that argues that constitutional separation of church and state is a myth, claimed Jefferson didn't question Christianity until the last 15 years of his life.

Throckmorton said that Jefferson questioned key parts of Christianity including Mary's virgin birth, Jesus' resurrection and Jesus' teachings of being the messiah long before his death in 1826.

"As early as 1788, we have a letter where he said he didn't understand the trinity, and if he didn't understand the trinity, how could he possibly agree to it?" Throckmorton told the Guardian. "Barton has to ignore all of that, which he does. In his book, he doesn't mention it."

Critics also say the book glosses over Jefferson's slave ownership. Barton argued that Jefferson couldn't free his slaves because of Virginia state law. Throckmorton says that's not true after 1782, when Virginia passed a law that let slaveowners free their slaves and Jefferson refrained from freeing his.

Barton, who has worked as consultant to the Republican National Committee and as a co-chair in the Texas GOP, defended his claims and said he has historical documentation for each of the purported inaccuracies.

In a statement released Friday, Barton said:

As is the case with all of our published items, we go above and beyond with original source documentation so that people can be thoroughly confident when they see the truth of history for themselves. We find it regrettable that Thomas Nelson never contacted us with even one specific area of concern before curtly notifying us they had dropped the work. Had they done so, we would have been happy to provide them with the thorough and extensive historical documentation for any question or issue they raised; they never asked. The Jefferson Lies has not been pulled from publication and it will continue to sell nationally.

The book is still available for purchase on the WallBuilders website, and Barton claims it has been picked up by a much larger national publisher.